ISBN:042518286XAmazon.com
Robin Cook, master of bestselling medical thrillers, answers the "What's the worst thing that could happen?" question in this plot-twisting novel in which villains with no sense of ethics or social responsibility get their greedy hands on the newest cloning technology. It starts when a couple of Harvard graduate students answer the Wingate Clinic's ad for egg donors. The women figure on financing a year in Venice and the down payment on a Boston condo with the extraordinary sum they're promised. But a year later, the heroines feel the emotional need to seek out the children they've made possible for infertile couples. So they disguise themselves and seek jobs at the clinic in order to access the identifying information. The clinic, as it turns out, has plenty of secrets to protect, so it's hard to believe that a pair of computer neophytes could bypass its security. But they do, and the author is an adept enough writer to finesse this detail.
As in past books, Cook is much better at the technical details of medical research than he is at characterization, but he definitely knows how to plot a thriller. This one keeps you turning the pages until the final denouement, though the last chapter ends abruptly, leaving the reader to wonder whether he ran out of steam or is just setting up a sequel in which he'll recycle the villains in a new scheme with a new pair of victims. --Jane Adams/p>
Reviews From AMAZON.COM
My word! Cook's unnatural dialogue never bothers me...
In both Marker and Shock, the female protagonists say, "My word," often enough to start a drinking game. You could also have a drinking game everytime one character uses full names and titles to speak about a person to another character that they both know - but since the reader doesn't, our girls have to become Cook's version of the Greek Chorus. They also function as the Interlocutor, especially when the girls use their own "Cookspeak", a language used to educate the reader and each other, repeatedly and most times redundantly, which is uh...stilted, formal English.
But I am used to his dialogue now, unlike most people complaining about the effect being new, I found it in almost every book I read by him over the years, so I was just resigned to it. And it does make for a good drinking game.
Enough about the unrealistic chatter, the point is to get the story moving along and learn a little something painlessly in the process. It may not be as much fun as a Chrichton novel, but once you can get past your dislike for cardboard cutout dolls there is a story there and it is a nice timewaster, plot holes and all. Throw in some suspenseful action and some good imagery,and you may enjoy learning a little something along the way.
Some teachers are very dull and dry and detached and it is hard to care about the subject matter, but Cook at least tries to make his points with characters who almost try to sound like real people he may have once overheard talking. Hey, it's a Robin Cook book, you should know what to expect. I am a skimmer reader anyway, so that may explain why I don't get myself bogged down in too many extraneous details or formal dialogues.
This is edutainment, even Dan Brown can have his characters start talking on stilts now and then, but it doesn't mean I won't listen to what they say. Maybe most of these medical/theological mystery writers need to take a crash course from Jeffrey Deaver, if he were to offer a class in, oh, how about Basic Character Speech Patterns 101, with emphasis on current cultural language development. Anyway I give this 3 stars because it was a good waste of my time, and am going to start reading Seizure now to see if that will add anything to the drinking game. My word, I hope it shall!
Beware classified ads for "egg donors"
If you read the classifieds of the trendy little weeklies you've probably seen the ads for bright, healthy young women to "donate eggs" to help a childless couple. SHOCK starts out with this scenario and takes you on a whirlwind of "The Egg and I" that would make Betty MacDonald faint. Nefarious doings at a fertility clinic, cloning, gestating human fetuses in third world servant women and a great deal worse! I loved the two Harvard heroines who tackle the mad doctors at the clinic... fast pace doesn't let up. If you've got ovaries or love someone who does, this is a book that will keep you turning the pages.